


Secrets Better Shared

by missema



Series: Kirkwall Tech [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Family Drama, First Kiss, Nobility, Poverty, Relationship(s), Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6199366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missema/pseuds/missema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melissa Hawke has just started dating Sebastian Vael, and they both are keeping secrets from each other. It's wearing on them as they try to get closer. Between her hectic schedule and an unexpected visit from Sebastian's father, they haven't had a chance to clear the air.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sebastian fell into step beside Melissa as she was making her way across campus from her last class of the day. He had been looking forward to the next time they were supposed to see each other, but they had yet to schedule it. Running into her was a good way to get to scheduling that next date. He would probably be late to his next class, but Sebastian didn’t mind.

It took her a moment to notice his presence; he hadn’t spoken, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he had, she had her headphones on. She was wearing jeans and a worn grey t-shirt, her black hair pulled into a long ponytail. When she finally looked over at him, she started but recovered quickly.

“Maker, you haven’t been there long, have you?” she asked, startled as she slid her headphones down to her neck. She smiled up at him and he felt like the sun had more warmth as it shone on him.

“Not at all. I just saw you and wanted to catch up. You have another class?” he asked.

They’d gone out for dinner since they’d talked at the party, and once he’d gone to see her at the apartment she shared with Isabela to watch a movie. Sebastian was getting to know Melissa, and the more time he spent with her, the more he liked her. Though they were growing closer, he still couldn’t say he knew her very well. She was a good listener, talkative and engaging, but guarded when it came to talking about herself.

“Not today, but I’ve got a tutoring session later,” she said. 

“You tutor underclassmen?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She stopped walking and looked over at him. It was a little unnerving being the focus of her gaze, but better him than anyone else. “I’m really busy today, but it’s good to see you. Do you want to go out on Friday? No, wait,” she stopped herself and thought for a moment. “Saturday’s better.”

Sebastian considered his schedule and then nodded. “Saturday night?”

“Sure. I’ll text you,” she said.

He reached out and took her hand in his, squeezing it lightly before letting go, and she smiled back at him. Then she was off, walking away and putting her headphones back over her ears before he could even say goodbye. The view as she walked away was pleasant and he was minded to stand there and watch her for as long as he could. Her hips had an almost mesmerizing sway, and her jeans fit her curves well.

It took him until she’d disappeared from view to realize she’d been heading away from campus. He shrugged off the question that formed in his mind. It wasn’t really his business where she went, but damn if he wasn’t curious.

#

“Just tell him!” Isabela shouted from her room.

“I can’t think of a good way to say it,” Melissa shouted back from her own room, pulling a shirt over her head and discarding her t-shirt on the messy bed. She had to get dressed for work and then be back on campus for a tutoring session later, all before looking at her own homework or having dinner.

Her room in the apartment was on the small size, but she didn’t need much room. Any room of her own was welcome. She and Isabela shared a tiny two bedroom apartment in an old brick building near the campus. They lived on the first floor and even had a little door that led out into the postage stamp sized garden. Melissa had thrown a handful of wildflower seeds down there when they first moved in, and a random crop of small flowers were growing, thanks to one of their neighbors dumping their compost there. She looked out the window in her half-dressed state, watching the tiny blooms as they swayed in the wind.

“It’s nothing he probably hasn’t heard before,” Isabela was standing in the doorway to Hawke’s room. Melissa answered her without turning around.

“I know my family isn’t the first family to lose it all, but I’d rather not have to say ‘my mother has been a shadow of herself since my father died and we lost our home, so I’ve worked two jobs since I was seventeen. That’s why we can’t go out on Friday, and also do you mind paying because my family’s rent is due and I have to make sure that I have extra money in case my uncle stole it off my mother.’ That’s just a lot for anyone.”

“Sweetness, you can always ask me if you need anything,” Isabela said. Melissa did turn around to look at her then and sighed.

“I really don’t need help now, but thanks. I have it under control. I paid up the rent here until summer, and then I’ll be working more so it won’t be an issue. And Bethany is working with me now, so things aren’t as strained at home. I just don’t want it to get bad again. I can’t go back to living with my whole family in a two bedroom apartment.”

“He’ll understand. If he doesn’t, forget about him,” Isabela said.

“I don’t know if I want to forget about him. I like Sebastian. “ She thought back on seeing him earlier and smiled. He’d caught her off-guard, but she’d been pleased he wanted to go out again. “He’s rather pretty,” Melissa said.

“He is. You aren’t the first to think that. He’s got a good bit of history, if any of the stories are true,” Isabela told her. She looked at her nails while she said it, and Melissa knew it had to be the truth if Bela was avoiding eye contact. There was some curiosity about it, now that Isabela had brought it up, but Melissa as always, was running late.

“Gonna be seriously late if I don’t leave now.” Hawke slipped on her backpack and into a pair of tennis shoes. “See you later,” she said to Isabela at the door.

“Just send him a text. You two can have a confessional session. Sharing secrets can lead to all sorts of interesting times.”

Melissa waved at her and shut the door, trying to recall any rumors she’d ever heard about Sebastian. She could ask him straight out, sure, but she didn’t want to offend. Knowledge was good, right? Maybe Bela would tell her more before she went around poking him about it. Then again, rumors were dicey. They weren’t always knowledge, or even based in truth and were likely to be scandalous or offensive or both. Perhaps she was better off not trusting anything but her own opinions of Sebastian. That was how she hoped he’d treat her.


	2. Chapter 2

“Your Highness,” a voice said from Sebastian’s doorway. He suppressed a groan as he looked up at his unexpected visitor.

Sebastian made a show of saving his work before closing his laptop. That work wasn’t work at all, but no one else need know that. He’d been looking at a page on the mathematics departmental website just before he’d been interrupted. Melissa was listed on there as a tutor, so there was truth in it. Her smiling picture had been next to a list of classes available to tutor (almost all of the undergraduate courses) and her available times.

“Ronan. I thought my father had agreed to dispense with the guards.” He rose from off the bed and came to face the man blocking his door.

When he’d first come to Kirkwall, he was guarded day and night by a team of knights in suits. This made fitting in at his college problematic, and he and his father had fought fiercely about it, by phone, letter and email. The prince of Starkhaven finally relented, but only after Sebastian had proven himself by getting on the Dean’s List in his first semester. He wasn’t naive enough to think that his father had forgone all guards, but Sebastian didn’t mind it as much when it didn’t interfere with his life. Well, he did mind it, but had long come to terms with the fact that he might need the protection, one of these days.

“His Highness the Prince of Starkhaven has sent us ahead. He’s to be here in a day’s time and wishes to dine with you,” Ronan informed him. Sebastian waved a hand impatiently at the bulky man.

“Yes, I know. I got the email. Is this a security check on my fraternity, or just a friendly chat?

“Neither, Your Highness. I am here to deliver a package. Your father expects you for dinner at the appointed time, but your mother sends her regrets that she couldn’t come and asked me to give you this.” Ronan moved back out of the door and another Starkhaven royal guard in a neat black suit came in bearing a medium sized moving box. Sebastian thanked the other man, sparing the box a glance before turning back to Ronan.

“Thank you, Ronan. I expect I shall see you tomorrow night then, when I meet His Highness. Is that all?”

“Yes, Your Highness. Thank you,” Ronan said. He gave a small bow and departed, while Sebastian watched him retreat. More guards followed him down the hall.

When they were gone, Sebastian opened up his laptop, then closed it again. He wanted to open the package from his mother.

There was nothing in the box that didn’t remind him of his mother, and that made him smile. It had been over a year since he’d seen her, years since they’d done more than caught up with each other in person. They did not, as a rule, have time to spend with each other, each more occupied with their own lives, but he did value what time they had together.

He was the youngest of three children born to the prince of Starkhaven, and the only one by his current wife. Before his mother, Sebastian’s father had been married before. His first wife had died fairly young, and when the fifty year old prince decided to marry again it was to a woman half of his age from a noble Antivan family. Sebastian was the only child from their marriage, and his mother doted.

It was unfair to say that she wasn’t the same overindulgent mother with all three sons. Though his older brothers were not her biological sons, and his oldest brother was closer to Mother’s age than their father was, she treated them all well. Her boys, as she called them, could do no wrong. His father was included in that lot, even though he did many, many things with which Sebastian found fault.

There was a note in the box, and Sebastian pulled the smooth ecru card from the envelope that bore his name written in his mother’s fluid hand.

 _Sebastian, my darling,_  
_I regret that I cannot come to Kirkwall to see you on this trip, but I would like to see you soon. It has been far too long my boy, and I miss you dearly. I know that you are busy with your life and school, but you are always in my thoughts._  
_There are some things in here that aren’t just for you. On my last trip to Orlais, I picked up some beautiful items that I thought to pass on in case you found someone to bestow them upon. You’ve gone too long without romance in your life. A few interesting gifts could help get things started with the right person. Or you could keep them, if there really is no one to bestow them upon._  
_I love you much, my dear boy. Keep up the good work with your studies. We were ever so proud to see you on the Dean’s list again last semester._  
_All my love,_  
_Mama_

He pulled back the white tissue paper that filled the box and revealed several gifts for him, a new silk tie, a cable-knit sweater that must have come from home and would be nice to wear when it grew cold in the fall. He had always loved the Starkhaven pride that went into the craft, and missed the hills of his home. Once, at age six, Sebastian had declared he was going to be a sheep herd. That life wasn’t for him, but he would happily take the sweater.

Expensive dress clothes that would be more appropriate if he had a job and didn’t live in a house filled with young men in various stages of ripe filth. Sometimes living in the house was exciting, but far more often, disgusting. Would that he could take an apartment of his own, but he had no funds to do so. His father cut off most of his money after he’d come to Kirkwall, and got any bills sent back to him.

After all of his gifts, there was another smaller box that was tucked in the bottom of the box. Sebastian was wary as he lifted out the smaller box, but inside of it was a music box. His mother hadn’t gotten anything too delicate or ornate, but had chosen a small blue ceramic box that played a soft, slightly melancholy tune when turned. It made Sebastian think of Melissa. Would she like a gift like this or would it be too forward? He wasn’t sure they’d reached that part of their relationship yet.

The only other item he could see that wasn’t specifically for him was a neatly wrapped scarf. It was silk and colored in a deep red and blue pattern with gold accents. It looked a little formal for everyday wear, but he could see it worn with a neat wool coat in the winter. He didn’t know much about accessorizing - he’d never gotten into fashion as some of his friends back home had been. They strutted around like pretentious peacocks trying to outdo one another as they dressed for dinners, balls and parties. Had he wanted, he could join right in with the flashy cars and expensive sunglasses crowd. A long time ago he’d tried, but that life hadn’t fulfilled him.

His life before he’d started seeing Melissa had been full enough, though Sebastian had missed dating. The past loomed like a specter over his present, informing his decisions and making him cautious when his friends and brothers prodded him towards wildness. The wild, raucous boy he’d once been still lived within him and he feared that he would never leave that part of his life behind. Others still feared that too, especially his father.

Sebastian set aside the gifts and reopened his laptop, thinking about Starkhaven. He missed it there, but had no desire to try to go back right now. There was something unfinished about himself, more than just his degree. It was unsettling, and sometimes dispiriting, but he had no idea exactly what it was. The Grand Cleric had once told him that he would find what he needed within himself when he least expected it, but that answer had upset him as too vague when she’d said it. Now, he wondered.

Melissa’s tutoring information was still out on the screen when he looked down at it, and Sebastian frowned. He should talk to her, tell her about his past before the rumors caught up to her. Perhaps it was that she already knew and didn’t care. He didn’t want that either; it was always preferable to present the truth. He had to talk to her, he knew that, but it would have to wait until after he entertained the visiting prince of Starkhaven.

Sebastian closed the page for the math department, opened his own email and decided to work on his reading and work for class. If he had a dinner date for tomorrow with his father, he’d need to get all of the work done he could beforehand. It wouldn’t do to sit through a dinner being upbraided by his father and then come home and try to concentrate on some homework.

#

Melissa was working at Athenril’s the next evening with her sister. Athenril had a shop just in on the edge of the most desirable part of Hightown. Boutiques and bistros lined the avenue where they worked, and Athenril’s sign proclaimed her a seller of antiques and rare books. Sometimes it fooled enough people for her to actually make a profit.

Bethany was lost in the cluttered aisles of the hole in the wall store as Melissa cleaned the front window. The same display always sat there, but there was no reason for it to collect dust. Neither sister kept up the conversation as they worked, but occasionally one would call out to the other to come and see something interesting or for help.

“Lissa, I’m going in the back,” Bethany called out to her. “I think I found that box of books Athenril was looking for last week.”

“All right,” Melissa yelled back, looking up from the window where she dusted. When Bethany grunted as she picked up the box of books, Melissa offered to help, but her sister declined and went out of sight.

If she hadn’t turned back to the window then, she would have missed it. There were motorcycles coming down the cobbled street, normally closed to all but foot traffic. This was downtown Kirkwall, an area so old and cramped that they hadn’t even been able to fit buses down the streets before they’d made it pedestrian only. The motorcycles had little flags on them, but they went by so quickly, Melissa couldn’t make out anything more than the color blue. Anxiety swept over her - these couldn’t be emergency vehicles, could they?

Then a sleek black car pulled up to one of the restaurants, a sports car of some sort. She knew almost nothing about cars, though she did have a license to drive. Her family had only owned a beaten up old Land Rover in Ferelden, which she’d sold to help pay for their move to Kirkwall when they left. She was wiping absently at the glass bottle she’d picked up, staring out the window at the silent, flashing lights on the police escort that followed the black car.

She wasn’t the only one staring out of a window, but no crowd had dared to gather round the cadre of motorcycles and cops. The man driving the car got out and opened the back door, letting out an older man in a suit that looked familiar to her. Melissa had only just registered that thought when Sebastian slid out of the other door, standing up with wary determination and following the other man.

Oh Maker, how had she forgotten? Sebastian was a prince, though there was more than a few of those around. All of the wealthy Antivan merchant children called themselves prince or princess. It made her forget that Sebastian’s kind of princeliness had a legitimacy that merchant princes didn’t; his father actually did rule over Starkhaven. Her mind couldn’t form real thoughts, couldn’t even think up anything interesting about Starkhaven, so she just watched him until he disappeared inside the restaurant.

“Who’s that?” Bethany asked, making Melissa start as she spoke. Melissa wasn’t sure what to say, so she just shrugged.

“Some diplomat it looks like, look at the plates on the car. I couldn’t tell who it was when he got out.” It was a lie, but Melissa wasn’t sure how to process the truth at the moment. She didn’t want to discuss it with the ever-intuitive Bethany, who would gently press her until she spilled all.

Her sister wasn’t interested at the sight outside, merely curious as to what had caught Melissa’s attention. If she knew that Melissa had lied, she didn’t show it. There were other things on he mind. She leaned in close and whispered, “I think Athenril’s up to her old tricks again.”

Melissa sighed. “I hope we’re not involved this time,” she said.

Bethany nodded at her, looking unhappy. “I’ve had enough of the seedy side of Kirkwall life. I’ve been applying for other jobs, but you know how that goes. Apply everywhere, get two interviews, go and think you’ve bombed and then sit around waiting on edge until you realize they’re not going to call.”

“I’m sorry, B,” Melissa said, meaning it. Bethany had delayed going to school, just as Melissa had at eighteen so she could work and contribute to the household. Bethany had become companion to their mother, keeping her frail spirits raised just by being around. “Maybe you could take a class or two since Athenril doesn’t have you on full time.”

“I’ve thought about it,” Bethany said. “But then I’m not sure what I want. I wish I were more like you or Carver, so decisive. But I just can’t figure it out.”

Her sister sighed and looked down, trying to hide the misery on her face. Neither one of them mentioned Carver much these days, not since he’d just up and left. As a mage, Bethany had a hard time finding employers that would give her a chance. Mages had it rough; they were subject to government tracking and random templar visits. Discrimination and unfounded fear came along with magic, and lots of prejudice.

Already Kirkwall’s Knight-Commander had sent some of her Order around to visit them, but nothing had come of it. There was a part of the Circle of Magi that housed locked up blood mages and other mage criminals, or those the Knight-Commander had decided were criminals. Other mages, once trained and after passing a competency test were allowed to either leave or stay on in the Circle. The Circle here in Kirkwall ‘encouraged’ mages to stay within its confines at the Gallows for ‘their own safety’.

Since Bethany was employed with Athenril, she was considered a low risk mage. But having a crappy job with a woman that admitted to smuggling artifacts and antiquities was not the best place for Melissa’s little sister. Carver had hated it as well, Athenril had taken him on for a time then recommended him for mercenary work with the Red Iron. Mercenary work was a better fit for him. He’d left gratefully, but Melissa chose to stay and keep working.

Jobs were scarce in Kirkwall, but the situation was not as bad as it had been in Ferelden. They’d had to leave after the economy of Ferelden collapsed magnificently, almost overnight. Well, it had seemed like it was overnight to Hawke, who had then been consumed by her own struggle to keep her family afloat. In hindsight the crash had actually taken a good number of years. She’d had to study it in her economics class in Kirkwall. It had been safe then, academic, not a thing that had completely changed her life.

Greed and hunger and inflation were the tools of the nobility, and for years they rode high there, taking what they wanted and throwing around money as it suited them. Now there was a Blight - near complete ruin. No one was working in Ferelden, and they just barely held onto their seat in the Thedosian Union. If they’d been kicked out, Ferelden would have probably splintered back into small bannorns and been ripe pickings for Orlais. A lot of people had worked hard to make sure that hadn’t happened. Ferelden had a new king, and they were working again. Her home country was rising to its feet once again, but she wouldn’t be there. Kirkwall was home now.

“Hawke, I have a delivery job for you,” Athenril said. She’d come up behind the two of them silently, making Bethany start at the sound of her voice.

Melissa turned around to face her. Athenril was impossible to read, but she wasn’t terrible to work for, just dishonest. Mostly in her business dealings, because she dabbled in black market goods. Mostly books of rare and strange provenances that showed up in the middle of the night and disappeared just as quickly. She held out a gift wrapped box to Melissa.

“Take it to the Hanged Man. It’s for Varric. Make sure he tips you,” Athenril said, handing the package off.

Melissa took it without protest and gathered her bag to slip it inside. No one in Hightown would bother her, but once she crossed the bridge to Lowtown, there could be trouble. Some concerned citizens might just decide a courier on foot with such a pretty box might need to be escorted into an alley and relieved of her package.  
  
As she left, she glanced into the restaurant windows where Sebastian had gone in, but could see nothing but candlelight reflected like light through a prism, over and over again on the glass.


	3. Chapter 3

They were ensconced in a private dining room with Starkhaven guards outside the door, but his father had merely asked for the menu and then settled in, looking at his son. They didn’t speak. Sebastian sat across from his father, facing him for the first time in years. He hadn’t bothered to come since Sebastian had been sent to Kirkwall. Or chose it. It could be both, it could be one or the other. Some days it felt like it chose him instead of the other way around.

“You’re doing well?” his father finally asked.

“Yes, Your Highness. My classwork is going well. I was on the Dean’s List last semester,” Sebastian said. His mother knew, but that was no guarantee his father did.

“So your mother says. We are proud of the changes you’ve made. Shoring up. Good, good.” His father seemed to be talking to himself more than Sebastian.

There was silence for a long moment, only interrupted when a waiter came bearing bread and goblets of water for them. They ordered drinks, his father opting for Antivan brandy and Sebastian ordering sparkling water.

“Don’t drink anymore, boy?” his father asked. There might have been the suggestion of a sneer in the question, but Sebastian ignored it. His father wouldn’t goad him, intentionally or not.

“I do, Your Highness. Just not as much, and not when I have class in the morning.”

His father nodded, accepting the explanation. Sebastian always had a hard time dealing with him, but this dinner was going better than expected. In the old days, his father would have already been in the midst of a lecture about appearance and propriety. Even though the silences between them were overlong, they weren’t strained.

He apparently, was the only one comfortable with the silence, because his father began to fill it with talk. First it was of economics, one of his favorite subjects, because money always made him happy. As their drinks came and their orders were placed, his father talked about Kirkwall and the shipping and their trade with Starkhaven. Sebastian paid little attention, but it wasn’t required. Whatever test his father had for him, he’d already passed it.

Dinner plates were sat in front of them, Sebastian’s a large plate of grilled chicken and roasted vegetables, his father’s dinner was a pretty swordfish with lemon and asparagus. He should have ordered fish. Kirkwall’s fish was excellent, but he’d not thought about it when ordered, his only concern then had been getting through the dinner.

“I approve of the young Lady Amell,” his father said out of nowhere.

“You approve?” Sebastian asked, confused.

“Oh yes, Leandra Amell’s daughter, while she did grow up as a Ferelden farmer, isn’t what I would have expected from you. Her work in the mathematics department seems promising. A keener mind than I would have expected,” his father finished, taking a sip of his wine.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Sebastian confessed. His face conveyed his bemusement, but instead of getting the expected irritation sigh from his father, he just sat back in his chair. “You’re talking about Melissa? he asked.

“Melissa Hawke is part of the Amell family. They’re nobility from Kirkwall, originally. Her mother eloped and the brother, Melissa’s uncle, is a wastrel. I didn’t mean to disclose anything you didn’t already know. She seems an intelligent, responsible young woman. A good choice, even if her branch of the family is now living in a more modest fashion. I wanted to voice my support of you and your relationship. Your mother will be pleased. She always liked the Amells, speaks highly of them.”

Sebastian put down his fork and eyed his father. Sitting across from him was a man different than the one he’d last seen. They weren’t fighting, and his father seemed to have little interest in badgering him. He truly wanted to know how Sebastian was doing, and voiced his support of his relationship with Melissa. True, that support might not be there if she hadn’t been nobility, displaced or not, but Sebastian was warmed by it.

“Melissa and I, we just started seeing each other,” Sebastian said, as an explanation. “We have plans later this week, but we haven’t…it’s very new.”

“I know. Have you a measure of restraint now or did she refuse to fall into your bed?” his father asked, but it wasn’t unkindly said. The question, given his history, was almost fair.

“That hasn’t come up yet. It might be a case of both,” Sebastian said, and his father laughed. The sound was almost strange to hear. It had been so long since he’d made his father laugh that Sebastian had nearly forgotten he could. They ate their food for a while, and his father let the subject of Melissa drop.

“This summer, there might be a job for you at the Viscount’s Office, if you want it. We were discussing it this afternoon in our meeting. He has a need for good engineers, especially down near the docks.”

Sebastian leaned forward, his food forgotten. “Truly? I would love to do actual work this summer.”

His father gave him another sharp look, but shook his head. “If I hadn’t known you were my son, I wouldn’t recognize you as a man grown.”

“Father,” Sebastian began, but his father held up his hand to stop him.

“Kirkwall is falling apart. I’d say you could spin any summer jobs here into full time ones once you graduate, if it is your intent to stay here. If not, there are plenty of other cities with infrastructure. Contact the seneschal, he will be expecting your call,” his father said, then went back to his fish.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Good. Your mother will be pleased.”

The rest of the meal was more idle conversation, much of it about how Kirkwall was in dire need of many repairs, from the docks to the sewer system. Sebastian didn’t know how to feel — his father had managed to surprise him twice before they’d even finished dinner. He paid closer attention to the conversation this time, and when the subject petered out and dinner was done, Sebastian felt better. Not warm and closer to his father, no there were years of misunderstandings and arguments between them, too much to be remedied by one dinner, but it was a start. In the car back to his house, his father gave him a check for ten thousand crowns, just for expenses. It was the first time he’d received anything outside of his school expenses in years.

He nodded his goodbye at Ronan as he went back into the Society house. Ronan nodded back at him. Sebastian didn’t turn around when he heard the cars leaving as he closed the door behind him.

#

Saturday was supposed to be over for dinner in and movies. It was simple, cheap and a chance for them to talk. Melissa chewed on her lip, her nerves getting the better of her. They’d order pizza when he got here, so there was nothing for her to prepare. The apartment was usually pretty tidy, save for Isabela’s room. Her room was her own space, and besides Bela wasn’t even around.

She had some extra cash from that delivery to Varric the other night. It felt funny taking money from a friend, but he’d waved her off when she tried to refuse.

“Hawke, do you even know what you’ve got there? If you did, you wouldn’t let me just take it from you,” he said, chuckling as he handed her a couple of sovereigns.

She’d taken the money, kept it just in case. Isabela was good at sniffing out coins, and though she usually got them back, Melissa didn’t want to just lose these. They felt significant, more important than just coins. Maybe it was because of what she learned when she got them.

In Varric’s rooms at the tavern, she had sat down for a time. There had been no reason to rush back to Athenril’s anyway. It was Varric that started asking her about Sebastian.

“Am I to understand that you’re seeing the Choir Boy now?” he’d asked.

“I am. What’s it to you?”

“He’s got an interesting history. You sure you wanna go there?”

“I don’t know his history, so you’d better tell me so I can make an informed decision,” she’d said and Varric had sighed.

“All right. I don’t know details, so don’t get mad at me. Sebastian had a lover, two of them in fact, at his old university. There was some trouble with that, because they weren’t students and he was. I think it was a professor and her husband. They’re in Orlais now, where that sort of thing is probably more common. But he had to leave Starkhaven after it all came out that he was getting more than tutoring from his professor. Then he came to the Kirkwall Chantry and then to Tech. Don’t know much more than that.”

“Oh,” Melissa said. She knew he had a secret, but she was thunderstruck by this news. She couldn’t manage more than ‘oh’, not even after Varric tried to order her a mug of ale. Then, she’d laughed it off, making a comment about it being unexpected, and then rushed back to Athenril’s, just so she could think on the way back.

With a few days to think about it under her, it wasn’t as shocking. Well, it was, but mostly because she hadn’t known anything about the scandal. Sebastian, for whatever he’d been, had been perfectly gentlemanly with her. They hadn’t kissed yet, not even at the party where she’d been trying to get him to kiss her. She didn’t doubt that he wanted to kiss her, because that had been apparent at the party, and even before if she thought about it. They just hadn’t, yet.

But now she was here, wondering how to tell him what she knew. Secrets made her antsy, especially when they weren’t her own. Melissa stood in the middle of her pristine room, thinking, absently palming the gold coins she’d gotten from Varric. Wine. She’d buy a bottle of nice wine and even if things ended badly, she could still drink it. Something not too expensive, but still good.

She slid her messenger bag over her head and left the apartment after checking to make sure she had time to get back before Sebastian came over. Just enough, if she walked quickly. Melissa skipped the small, dingy store near her that sold ‘wine’ of dubious quality and walked on towards Hightown. There was a shop there that would have someone to explain her choices. Wine expertise wasn’t among the knowledge she had, despite her mother often saying the Amell cellars were the best in Kirkwall. She hadn’t grown up with that.

When she got there, Melissa went straight to the desk to ask about wine, but a hand caught her arm as she went through the aisle. When she looked up, she smiled. Sebastian.

“I thought I might surprise you,” he said. “But I see we’re of the same mind.”

“I guess we are. What have you got?” she asked, pointing at the bottle he was holding in his free hand.

“This is a Cabernet Orlais. I wasn’t sure what kind of pizza we’d have, but I think this might go well with any. Do you agree?”

“I don’t know wine all that well, which is why I came here. I was going to ask.”

“You can try it if you’re unsure,” he offered, but she shook her head.

“It’s just pizza. If I hate it, I’m sure Bela will drink it.”

Sebastian snorted. “Kind of her to provide the service. I’ll pay and we can go.”

The sun was setting outside, painting the stone with the burnished red of its last rays. Sebastian slid the bottle of wine into her bag, and then took up her hand as they walked. Melissa was quiet for a moment, but couldn’t hold it in.

“Sebastian, I’m broke and my father is dead and we all had to come to Kirkwall and live with my uncle in a crappy apartment in Lowtown,” she blurted. Everything was confused, a jumble in her mind and mouth, coming out the wrong way. He stopped walking.

“Then you should definitely let me pay for the pizza as well,” he said.

“That’s not what I meant,” Melissa began, but he stopped her.

“This way,” he said. “Our conversation isn’t meant for all of Hightown to hear.” He led her down between two buildings and onto a smaller street, already shrouded in shadow. “Melissa, tell me what’s on your mind.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. My family was, or maybe is, nobility. I don’t know anymore. All I know is that I’m pretty strapped most of the time, and we always have been. I’ve worked two jobs since my father died when I was seventeen.”

“My sorrow for yours, Melissa,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said automatically. “I work all the time, that’s why I haven’t been able to see you more. I just thought,” she shrugged, growing more shy under his silent scrutiny, “you should know.”

“Thank you,” he said. Sebastian paused, then went on in a lower, more halting tone. “Since you’ve been so brave and honest, I should tell you about my…background.”

They started to walk again, and his hand started to sweat in hers. They broke apart, still walking side by side. “Before, when I was younger and foolish, I almost ruined the careers of two people I cared about. I was in a relationship that was, at best, ill-advised on all of our parts. But I was hardly a man, and my father decided that I was an embarrassment, and that being sexually involved with a professor and her husband was the last straw. I was exiled from Starkhaven by my father, and came to Kirkwall. I had no money, no place to live, so I lived at the Chantry as lay brother,” he said.

“I didn’t think it was true.”

“So you knew. Or at least you’d heard something. And you still wanted to see me?” he asked.

For the first time, Melissa glimpsed uncertainty in him. She took up his hand again, swinging it in hers. Her heart was lighter than it had been in days. When she looked over at him, she was smiling.

“Of course.”

Sebatian’s kiss caught her still smiling, her grin pressed up against his lips before she melted into the kiss. She leaned into it, felt his breath catch as she did, as it became more than just his mouth up against her grin. His hand rested on the small of her back, pulling her closer to his chest as it went on, growing deeper, hotter as they drew closer together. Her tongue felt his, so careful as he tasted her, one of Melissa’s hands carding through his hair before she realized she’d raised it up. They broke apart only after a dog started barking somewhere nearby.

“We should get going,” she said. “But thank you for trusting me with the truth.”

Sebastian took her hand, this time lacing his fingers through hers. “Thank you, for telling me too. “And we didn’t even need the wine to make the truth come out,” he said, laughing.

“There’s always more secrets. I’m sure you have more,” Melissa said, her own giddy relief and mirth giving way to giggles as they walked.

“Only the most interesting secrets come out over wine. It might take time, but then, we have all night.” They walked on, Sebastian’s hand in hers as they tried to make it back to her apartment before dark.


End file.
